Off The Dock
by JollyMyRoger
Summary: Emma owes Hook a debt and has pushed him into collecting on it. So now Emma has a new harrowing task she isn't sure she's ready for. A date.


Emma's right hand crashed through her vanity drawer, fingers scrambling for eyeliner, while her left one kept primping her hair. Cursing, she abandoned her hair for the moment and dedicated both hands to finding that eyeliner. Finally realizing what had happened she let loose a short string of expletives, their bite was definitely lost with the smile that had slid on while she was saying them. Hook had stolen the pencil the last time he was here, sneaky bastard.

Emma checked herself in the mirror with a huff. There wasn't anything she could do about the eyeliner, but she was still dressed to the nines. The shiny black leather man-eater with a plaited front, the white heels with the little wings on the back, red lipstick a shade so deep Regina would be envious, hair tousled just enough…yeah that should work. A sly wink to herself at what she was about to do and Emma was off. She snatched her clutch and her oversized black leather jacket on the way out the door, hopping into her bug and set out. Emma Swan was going to teach Captain Hook two things tonight: what fashionably late meant and what it felt like to be left at one hell of a disadvantage.

Emma stood in the door, surprisingly nervous considering she was the one who had dressed to kill and was a perfect five minutes late. After two months since Killian had arrived and the tension had built up so damn high, then of course Hook had managed to get her in his debt and she pushed him to call it in. Thus the date at the fanciest place in town, which Emma couldn't decide how nice that actually made it. With a little sigh and a shake of her head Emma began moving towards the center of the room that the hostess had pointed out as Hook's table. The restaurant was crowded and dim enough that she wasn't able to make out Hook until she was a few feet away and shit, seeing him stopped her dead and almost made her jaw drop. The exact reaction she was trying to get from her date, talk about a backfire.

Emma had definitely heard other women talk about how a man in a well tailored suit was to a woman what a woman in lingerie was to men, but she had never witnessed it. The only time men had ever dressed up for her was when she was honey trapping them after they jumped bail, but now? Killian had dressed to impress and he knocked it out of the fucking park. He was in a perfectly tailored classic black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He was looking the other way at the moment, which gave her just enough time to take him in and recover, and then he saw her as she started walking again.

This definitely wasn't the first time Emma had gotten elevator eyes, starting at her feet then gliding up her hips for a nice slow at her breasts before finally looking at her face, but this was probably the only time it hadn't felt lecherous. The way Killian looked at her, his lips parting a little, felt like he was seeing all of her and appreciating everything about her. It sent shivers up her spine and made her feel gorgeous; tonight was going to be complicated.  
"Emma…" he said, so quietly she barely heard it from two feet away, as he stood up. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Emma."

She stood by her chair and smiled, suddenly feeling bashful. "Evening, Hook…tick tock, huh?"

He chuckled quietly before moving around the little square table, moving behind her to take her jacket. She let him slide it off her shoulders with one hand and then, to her amusement, he put it on his hook and draped it over the chair while he used his hand to move the chair back and pushed it under her as she sat down. Once Hook had sat back down a waiter came over and set down their menus, took their wine selection and their appetizer selection before leaving a bemused Emma and a bewildered Hook to try and make conversation.  
They started slow; Hook asked her about items on the menu, she explained how the different courses worked, he made fun of the red and gold carpet, she poked fun at the vaulted ceiling, and they threw around how much the chandeliers might be worth. When their waiter left their plates of crab cakes—Hook had copied her selection—they had exhausted the newest town gossip and were starting to flounder for subjects. Just before Emma opened her mouth to start commenting on the crab cakes, her brain pulled up something Hook had said to her a long time ago. _Try something new, darling._ And before she really knew what she was doing she asked, "I've got a deal for you, Hook. I'll trade you. I'll give you one story from my bail bondsperson days; you give me one story from your pirating days."

Hook's eyebrows told her that this was not the avenue he thought the conversation he was going, then that he was about to be a wiseass, before they settled back down into what she'd come to call the flirt position. "Alright, lass, that sounds like an excellent trade."

"Alright…so, my last one I tracked down was this one guy in Boston. He had embezzled, uh…stolen money under his care from his job, and then got caught. His wife loved him enough to post bail and then he ran after that. I managed to lure him in at this restaurant…"

Soon Emma and Hook were so deeply immersed in trading stories that the rest of the world just faded away. He countered her embarrassing first attempts at catching people with his first raids as a pirate, her flawless traps with his most daring raids, his story about ransoming an elderly duchess was perfect company to her story about a grandma bankrobber. When the waiter came back for their orders they both ordered without thinking and Killian waved him away quickly so Emma could continue their story, Emma could see that they were being rude to him but she couldn't seem to mind, they were so wrapped up in their conversation. The only time that Emma could really remember of the next hour outside of their conversation was when Hook used his hook to hold down his steak while he cut it and a waiter gave him an ugly look over it, Emma retaliated with a gaze so withering it could have rotted his clothes and impressed Cora simultaneously.

Forty minutes later and they were winding down, the waiter came by with the check and before Hook had a chance to do anything Emma slipped her credit card on the little tray and nodded the man away. This earned her the second exasperated look of night from Hook, the first had been when they had disagreed about the best time to execute a sneak attack.

"Not that I'm not grateful for this place to gore my pocket, love, but I believe that I invited you and thus I should be pay-" The serious look Emma gave him truncated his protest.

"Hook, part of this date tonight was a thank you. I'm not the best at expressing gratitude but I need to do so to you. You saved Henry when he slipped off the dock. That water was freezing and if you hadn't…" Emma blinked a few times and swallowed away the horrible feeling that stole over her when she thought of something happening to Henry, "If you hadn't dove in and pulled him out as quickly as you did he could have gotten really sick…or worse."

Hook sat there for a second before he nodded, "I understand, Emma, and you're welcome. Henry's a good lad but someone needs to teach that boy how to handle himself on a dock better." He gave her a little wink and she could swear there was a twinkle in his eye.

Emma couldn't help but smile back at him while she took her card back from the waiter, "I think he might, if only there was someone who could teach him things like that."

"Oh I think I know someone who could," he replied as he got up and moved by her side and offered his hand to help her get up, "There's this pirate, hook for a hand even, knows docks and boats better than any of the landlocked idiots in this little down." He whipped her jacket off her chair and presented it with a little flourish for her to put it on.

"I'll have to find that pirate then," Emma slipped her arms through the the jacket, flipped her hair out, spun a little bit and dropped a small curtsey to Hook, "Henry and I could both learn more about boats and docks."  
Both of them laughed then Hook's eyes ranged over her again, a small smile crawling up, "Have I mentioned how gorgeous you look tonight, love?"

"Ah, no, that was the first time," Emma began as she led the way out, "But I figured you'd like the dress. It helps show off your favorite things," she finished slyly.

As they made their way out into the crisp night air she heard Hook reply quietly enough she almost missed it, "Everything you wear shows off my favorite thing, love."

Rather than respond, Emma took a deep breath in then asked Hook, "How much did we have to drink?"

"Well that explains it. I definitely had too much to drive home." She turned to Hook and looked him right in the eyes, "I'm going to have to walk home 6 blocks in heels. I blame you."

He put his hand over his heart, affected a little wounded expression and replied, "I take full responsibility, lass, and in recompense I will walk you home."

"Lovely," she spun around and headed down the street, leaving him to catch up.

And catch up he did, after a few strides he was beside her, he hooked her left arm in his right and gave her this little smirk that told her he had been watching old movies, probably with her father, and had picked up how to be a gentleman by this world's standards. She didn't move her arm though, and they walked a block with some scattered comments or jokes.

"So, I meant to ask, where did you get that jacket? Seems a bit big for you and cut for a man."

Emma knew he was just curious, and maybe a bit jealous, but it took a second for her to push back the memory of Graham kissing her in the station and the dull ache of loss before she answered, "It was Graham's, the sheriff before me. I used to keep it in the office but…it just felt like the sheriff's jacket, so I started wearing it. Y'know?"

Hook nodded and fell into thought or, like her, memory. They walked the rest of the distance in comfortable silence, she leaned up against him a bit and he was all too happy to oblige, pulling her arm in a bit closer and giving her a little wink. They were still quiet as he walked her up the stairs to the door of her apartment, where he let go of her arm and she turned back to say goodbye.

Before she had a chance to say anything, he took her hand and said, "It was enchanting, Miss Emma Swan, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did," then he kissed the back of her hand before releasing it and giving her a smile. She could have simply said goodnight, thanked him, and gone inside. Be done with it and him, back to normal the next morning. But he gave her that smile, the same one he had given her when he said "I was hoping it would be you" at the bottom of the beanstalk, the same one he had given her after he finished wrapping her hand on the top of the beanstalk, the same one he had given her when she pulled him out of the rubble and he told her she had been amazing, right before she chained him up and ruined everything. But it was also the same smile he had given her when he asked her out after she told him she wanted him to cash in her debt right then, it wasn't quite as bright as the one he gave her when she said yes though. So she didn't say goodnight, or thank him, or go inside. She stepped forward reached up and pulled him into her and kissed Killian Jones.

He was definitely surprised, but he recovered quickly and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the ground a little bit and kept her pressed against him. They kissed while the world faded out and seemed to wobble off on its axis, everyone and everything else ignored, they kissed until they were both out of breath and had to break apart. Her feet slid back to rest on the ground, both of them gasping for air, still entwined, gazing right into each other's eyes.

"Well, it was about bloody time, huh, Killian?" Emma quipped as she breathed out, sucking in air as a smile broke upon her face and lit it up so brightly she seemed to glow a little.

Killian returned her smile for a second, brighter and wider and so much better than any other he had ever given her, before answering her with another kiss. The world faded out and wobbled for this one too.

After another eternity they broke apart, pressing their foreheads together as they caught their breath. Killian smiled at her and she smiled back, neither of them entirely sure what this was and neither of them giving a damn.

"Well, love, that was glorious and as much as it pains me, I'm going to leave you for the night. I promised I'd be a gentleman and I'd rather not break it at the last second." He gave her another wink and a grin and then they both laughed before separating.

"Alright Killian, go on. Keep your promise," Emma gave him a little push back, still smiling like an idiot. "But how about next time you pay and we go someplace I don't have to wear heels, huh?"

Killian snapped a lazy salute with his hook and then headed down the stairs, his last smile more than enough of a goodbye. Emma turned back to her door, unlocked it and went inside. She spun to close it and then rested her forehead against the old wood for a minute. She had definitely felt something, or a lot of somethings, and she wasn't sure what exactly it was. But she was sure as hell she was going to find out.


End file.
